The Boleyn Wife

by Brandy Purdy

  But did she truly love him, or was it all a calculated seduction masterminded by her clever brothers? Was she their puppet, or the mistress of her own mind? Was she playing him the way Anne Boleyn had? These questions I cannot answer. No one could ever divine what went on inside Mistress Seymour’s mind. She kept her own counsel, and from the commencement of their courtship until the day we laid her in her coffin she remained an enigma.

  While Jane Seymour and the King contented themselves with the simple pleasures, courting like a milkmaid and her swain, Anne threw herself into showing the world that she did not care; and, perhaps, in doing so she might also convince herself.

  The “pastimes in the Queen’s chamber” quickly became notorious for their frenzied gaiety, which often lasted until dawn’s first light. Wild dancing, music, singing, flirtations, high-stakes gambling, drinking, feasting, ribald riddles, poetry, kissing games, bawdy banter, and brazen jests—and worse, some said—went on inside Anne’s apartments.

  Anne was living on the razor’s edge and had become reckless in her despair, and her band of “evergreen gallants” were with her every step of the way.

  To challenge Jane Seymour, with her quaint high-necked dresses of dove gray, delicate pink, pale blue, butter yellow, and mint green, Anne threw down the gauntlet and ordered a dozen magnificent jewel-encrusted and exquisitely embroidered gowns in black, blood red, emerald green, sunset orange, tawny, russet, carnation, sapphire, royal purple, silver, and gold, all with her signature sleeves, often trimmed with costly furs, and French hoods and slippers to match. The bodices were cut low to display the firm mounds of her high-trussed breasts—no modest white partlets for her! And ropes of large, lustrous, creamy pearls ringed her neck, usually with her favorite pendant, the one George had given her—a golden B from which three large teardrop pearls dangled—resting in the hollow of her throat. “B for Boleyn or Bitch?” a popular jest asked.

  But Anne was now three years past thirty, and the constant fear and uncertainty had begun to show upon her face. She looked gaunt, haggard, and drawn, which caused her eyes to appear larger still—“The Goggle-Eyed Whore” indeed—and dark smudges appeared beneath them. There was a pinched look about her mouth and a subtle sagging of her cheeks. Fine lines appeared upon her brow and around her eyes and mouth. Though she had always been slender, she was losing weight at an alarming pace, and for the first time in her life she had to resort to a bum roll to pad her hips beneath her gowns. “That thin old woman,” the Spanish Ambassador contemptuously called her. And her breasts were no longer quite as high and firm, or her belly as flat, as they had been before she became a mother, but her boiled leather stays trussed high the first and flattened the other.

  To fight the ravages of time, she applied masks of egg whites to her face to tighten the skin, and cleansed it every morning and night with rosewater. Twice a month she bathed her entire body in a mixture of buttermilk and red wine. But she kept away from “Dead Fire”—quicksilver, or mercury—the stringent and agonizingly painful treatment that her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess, swore by. Aye, it burned away the wrinkles and lines but at what cost! It blackened the teeth and made them protrude from the gums like a mule’s, fouled the breath, and left the skin scorched, red, and coarse, and sometimes permanently tinged jaundice yellow or bilious green, so that daily applications of lard were required to soothe it, and white lead face paint became a necessity to disguise the discoloration. Anne thought the cost was too high to pay and resorted to more moderate methods instead.

  She plucked her brows into thin, graceful arches and lined them and her dark eyes dramatically with black kohl, painted her lips blood red, rouged her cheeks with cochineal, and scented her person and hair with rare perfumes brought at great expense from the Orient.

  But not all the rouge, exotic perfumes, and fascinating gowns in the world could help her now. Only one thing could save her—a son—and for that she needed Henry.

  22

  Against all the odds, she did it. Even though it was just for one night, and had nothing to do with love, or even liking, she did it. For one last night, he was hers again. But did she have God or the Devil to thank for it?

  How did she do it? She danced—a dance of desperation.

  Upon Anne’s orders a large round stage with a short flight of steps at the front was erected in the Great Hall. Tantalizingly veiled with a sheer, gauzy midnight blue curtain spangled with gold and silver stars, it piqued our curiosity, and as we supped we speculated about what we were about to see.

  A strange, heady incense that made us feel pleasantly giddy and lightheaded, filled the air. And there was the most peculiar music, the likes of which we had never heard before; slow, undulating, throbbing, and sensual, some of us could not help ourselves and began to sway slowly in our seats. It was played by Moorish musicians—wherever had they come from?—with skin black as tar. Turbans swathed their heads and they were garbed in tunics and full, baggy, billowing trousers made of vivid, jewel-hued silks, and upon their feet they wore golden slippers with pointy toes that curled in upon themselves.

  The curtains parted and we sat up straight and gasped. Granted, the Tudor court was a bawdy place, but this…it took our breaths away; we were spellbound and appalled, but not one of us, no matter how outraged, could look away or leave.

  To the left of the stage, Francis Weston lolled indolently upon a golden throne, wearing a robe of royal purple with a circlet of gilded laurel leaves. A goblet was in his hand and he raised it often to his lips, and every time he lowered it a young woman, naked but for bands of cloth of gold about her breasts and hips, replenished it from a large golden flagon. And at his feet, his hair and the whole of his skin painted gold, naked but for ropes of pearls around his hips and a golden pouch to contain his genitals, knelt Mark Smeaton with his lute.

  Francis Weston was portraying King Herod, the voice of Tom Wyatt informed us, startling us, as until then no one had noticed the poet, who was apparently to act as our narrator, lounging upon the steps, wearing a gold-bordered white tunic and sandals, and holding a small gilded harp.

  Beside King Herod, perched haughtily upon a slightly smaller throne, was Madge Shelton as Queen Herodias, in regal purple robes and a jeweled coronet, being fanned with peacock feathers by her gilded and scantily clad slave—Henry Norris.

  To the right of the stage, in a very short tunic and tall boots of shiny black leather, and a black half mask, stood Will Brereton, a long-handled axe clutched in one gloved hand and a length of silver chain in the other. The chain was attached to a collar, and that collar encircled the neck of the prisoner kneeling submissively at his feet—John the Baptist—George!

  My blood began to race at the sight of him kneeling there, bare but for a light blue loincloth, with his skin not gilded, but rubbed with a glistening oil that contained just a hint of gold dust.

  There was a movement at the back of the stage, and slowly, climbing a staircase, the twin of the one in front, a figure wrapped in cloth of silver appeared. By the shape it was plainly a woman, but she was wound so tightly in her all-concealing silver shroud she could only move in the tiniest, mincing steps. Her face was completely hidden in the shadows cast by the material draped over her head, which formed a makeshift hood.

  When she reached center stage she began to slowly emerge from her cocoon.

  First a graceful, long-fingered hand appeared, the nails gilded and every finger ringed with diamonds and pearls; then a bare arm, with bangles of gold about the slender wrist. She turned her back to us and flung both halves of the silver sheet open wide. She released it and it shimmered to the floor, revealing a second shroud, this one cloth of gold.

  On all fours, Henry Norris crawled across the stage to retrieve the silver sheet, and several ladies sighed meltingly at the sight of his muscular gilded flanks revealed by the gold loincloth. As he reached out a hand, she suddenly spun round and a dainty bare foot with gilded toenails emerged, its ankle encircled by tiny tinkling gold
bells. To stay his hand she stepped on it, but only lightly, and he instantly dropped flat, prostrating himself upon his belly, and ardently kissed her little foot. She jerked it away, and as she did so he caught hold of the golden shroud and yanked it off. Then, on hands and knees, dragging both silver and gold sheets, he scurried back to kneel beside Queen Herodias.

  Now we saw her entire body, draped from head to toe in a night-black veil trimmed with tiny gold bells. She raised her arms, and as she spun around the hem billowed out and we saw beneath it several layers of colorful veils.

  Then Salome began to dance. But it was no dance we knew, no courtly pavane, galliard, or lavolta. Sensuously she twirled and swayed, undulating her lissome body like a serpent, mesmerizing us with every movement as, one by one, she shed her veils—black, purple, sapphire, emerald, scarlet, yellow, saffron.

  When the last veil fell, our eyes were wide as dinner plates and our mouths so agape that every tooth in our heads could be seen. A servant pouring wine into the Duke of Norfolk’s goblet kept pouring even when it was full and overflowing onto Norfolk’s lap. But Norfolk didn’t even notice. Like everyone else, he could not tear his eyes away from the spectacle before us.

  There she stood, arms upraised, black hair swaying and hanging straight to her knees, a golden idol demanding to be worshipped, a black and gold Circe, wearing a gown that poured over her body like molten gold, its sleeveless bodice cut low in a deep V, the point of which almost touched her waist. Her skirt was slit thigh-high in front and back and on both sides to reveal her bare legs.

  There was the shrill, grating sound of a chair sliding, scraping back, and then King Henry was striding across the floor and bounding up the steps to confront Anne.

  There they stood, face-to-face, staring at each other for a long, tense moment, during which no one dared blink or breathe.

  Suddenly he stooped, grabbed hold of her, and slung her roughly over his shoulder.

  “If you dare cavort like a whore before my court, then, by Heaven, I shall treat you like one!” he roared as he left the stage. Anne did not struggle or protest; instead she went limp and let him carry her away.

  I did not hesitate. Pleading a sudden stomach upset, I scurried out and ran, with my skirts hitched up high above my knees, to Anne’s bedchamber and leapt inside a cupboard with latticed doors I could peep through and have a direct view of the bed.

  An instant later Henry kicked the door open, splintering wood and breaking hinges. He dumped Anne on the bed, and grasped her gown and tore it off her shoulders, all the way down to her waist, revealing that she had also gilded her nipples.

  “Harlot’s tricks!” he cried, pinching and twisting them savagely. Anne yelped in pain and Henry slapped her.

  Swiftly, he ripped away the rest of the fragile cloth-of-gold gown, and in frayed and tattered tinsel ribbons it floated down onto the floor.

  “Just like a whore!” he spat. “Not a stitch on underneath!”

  “Please, my lord, not like this!” Anne cried.

  “Shall I take you like the bitch you are? Would you like that?” Henry grasped her hips and turned her, positioning her on all fours. “Are you in heat, my bitch?” His meaty fingers dug into her cunny. Heedless of Anne’s cries, he pulled her back against him and ground his loins hard against her buttocks. “That performance you gave tonight would certainly suggest you are! So I shall do what you want and mount you!” He ripped off his great bejeweled codpiece—a magnificent padded mass of gold embroidery and rubies—tearing the laces in his haste, and flung it onto the floor.

  Gripping hard her hips, he plunged into her full force.

  Anne screamed as if she were being torn asunder. Instantly he clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams, and continued to thrust into her, stabbing hard and deep, ignoring the tears that poured over his fat pink fingers.

  “Do you know what the people say of you, Madame?” he continued between grunts and thrusts. “They call you the Witch Queen! Methinks they are right—you must have bewitched me! How else could my eyes have been dazzled for so long when there is nothing about you to desire or love? You must have worked some spell upon me. You made me desire you and turn the world upside down to have you, to shed blood and imperil my immortal soul and kingdom, all for you!” He thrust savagely again and Anne tried to squirm free. “Hold still, damn you!” His fingers dug deep into her naked hips. “Born of love, lust, indifference, or hate, I must have a son! Do not think for a moment that this pleasures me any—you disgust me! You with your shrew’s tongue and skinny stick of a body! You are more skeleton than flesh-and-blood woman, and what flesh there is of you sags!” He savagely twisted first one breast and then the other, followed by the slight slackness of her stomach. Anne grimaced with pain, and more tears squeezed out from between her tightly clenched eyelids as her body shook with silent sobs.

  “Tell me, Nan, did you make a bargain with the Devil to get me? Was it worth it?”

  Suddenly his florid red face, dripping with sweat, contorted, twisting until it resembled a leering devil mask, and a long, guttural sigh escaped him as he came, spewing his seed deep into her womb. He was still for a moment; then he withdrew, contemptuously releasing her, letting her fall facedown, sobbing, onto the bed.

  He stood there towering over her, with his flaccid prick dangling like a worm on a hook, flanked by the limp, torn laces that had held his codpiece in place. Never before had I seen such intense hatred upon a human face. Then, without a word, he grabbed her long hair and wiped his cock off with it, scooped up his codpiece, and drew the folds of his red velvet surcoat modestly across his loins.

  At the door he paused and tore off one of the gold medallions that decorated his doublet and threw it at her. “Here!” he spat contemptuously. “I always pay my whores!” Then he was gone, leaving the broken door sagging open wide so that any who cared to might witness what he left behind him.

  A little while later, Anne, her face red and swollen, her lips puffed and bleeding from where she had bitten them against the pain, levered herself up slowly from the bed. She stood there, swaying beside it, with Henry’s seed trickling down her legs and blood smearing her thighs; then, wincing with every step, she staggered across the room to her prie-dieu and dropped down onto her knees.

  Hands clasped tightly, desperately, in prayer, she lifted her tearstained face to the crucifix and benevolent, sad-eyed statue of the Virgin, with her compassionate face and mantle of celestial blue.

  “God help me! Holy Mother, help me! Please!” Fresh tears poured down her face, and her lips quivered uncontrollably. “Let my womb quicken and bring forth a son! Help me; my fate is in your hands.”

  They must have heard her. Incredibly, her prayers were answered.

  23

  On the seventh day of January 1536 Catherine of Aragon breathed her last. Before she expired she somehow found the strength to write one last time to the only man she had ever loved.

  “Lastly, I vow that my eyes desire you above all things,” she wrote, sheer willpower guiding her pen as agonizing pains stabbed her breast. She signed it “Catherine, Queen of England.”

  When the embalmers cut open her chest they found a hideous black growth hugging her heart in a deathly embrace.

  When her death was announced at court Henry donned the brightest, gaudiest yellow he could find, arraying himself in it from cap to shoes, and ordered everyone else to do the same.

  Anne was at his side in a gown of rich golden-yellow brocade encrusted with diamonds and edged with black lamb’s wool, with a diamond-dusted veil of beautiful yellow lace draped, like a Spanish mantilla, over her French hood. A triumphant smile graced her lips, and her right hand rested upon the mound of her little round belly that was just beginning to show.

  Never before had she looked so beautiful. This time pregnancy seemed to agree with her. Gone were the dark-smudged hollows beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were no longer gaunt, but pleasantly fleshed out, and her skin was smooth and clear.
She was radiant, glowing with health and vitality.

  Their daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was with them and, like her parents and the court, clad in brilliant yellow. Laughing, Henry tore off her little gold-embroidered cap to show off her fiery Tudorred hair and swung her up onto his shoulders and paraded her around the Great Hall.

  “God be praised, the harridan is dead!” Henry cried again and again, all smiles and good cheer. “Now we are free from all threat of war!” With no aunt to avenge, the Emperor Charles now had no reason to invade.

  Jane Seymour seemed like just another face in the crowd. Anne had done it again; she had bounced back from the very brink of failure. Seeing them walking side by side, fawning over their daughter, tousling her red hair and kissing her cheeks, they appeared the very image of a happy couple very much in love.

  “Bravo, Anna Regina! I knew you could do it!” George smiled, his eyes full of love, as, garbed in sunny yellow satin, he doffed his yellow-plumed cap and knelt at her feet.

  Anne reached down to caress his bearded chin. She smiled but did not speak. There was no need for words between them. There never was. The look in their eyes said it all.

  But the appearance of love renewed was merely a façade, a charade, to keep Anne calm for the sake of the precious cargo she carried in her womb.

  On the day of Catherine’s funeral I was with Anne when she caught the King dandling Jane Seymour upon his knee, chuckling as he nuzzled her with his bristly red beard. She giggled as he chucked beneath her chin and a blush suffused her pasty cheeks.

  Anne instantly flew into a rage.

  Henry leapt up guiltily and Jane Seymour tumbled to the floor.